Brad Butt privilege debate to dominate House on Tuesday

When the House opens for business this morning, MPs will resume debate over
what consequences, if any, should be meted out in response to yesterday's ruling on possible breach of privilege by Conservative MP Brad Butt.

A brief recap for those who haven't paid attention to the story so far: On
two separate occasions during second reading debate on the government's election bill last month, Butt claimed to have "personally witnessed" campaign
staff gathering up discarded voter information cards from apartment mail rooms
in order to, he averred, bring them back to headquarters, where they would, he
suggested, be doled out for fraudulent future use at polling stations.

Two weeks later, he retracted his comments -- or, at least, the fact that he
had "personally witnessed" such activity -- with no further explanation of exactly how such a seemingly inexplicable state of affairs had come about.

The New Democrats cried foul and launched a privilege complaint, arguing that, despite his after-the-fact correction, Butt had, in fact, deliberately misled the House, which can be grounds for a contempt finding.

On Monday, the speaker agreed that a prima facie breach of privilege had,
indeed, occurred, and gave the New Democrats leave to bring forward the
traditional motion to send it to committee for further study.

After less than two hours of debate, the government served notice that it
intends to force an end to the discussion during today's sitting --and, judging by
the Conservative contributions to the discussion so far, it would appear that
they also intend to put the boots the motion itself, on the grounds that Butt insists he
didn't intend to mislead to the House, and has duly corrected the record.

Not surprisingly, this is unlikely to go over well with the opposition, which
may well result in a day of procedural warfare, although there seems little
doubt that the matter will ultimately go to a vote, albeit possibly not until
8pm this evening.

In any case, depending on whether the opposition parties demonstrate their
dissatisfaction with the decision to move closure on the discussion, there may
be unscheduled votes throughout the day, which could play mild to middling havoc
with the normal schedule, particularly at committee.

Alternately, those same opposition parties could simply choose to let the
privilege debate play out.

Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, later this morning, the government is expected to introduce
legislation to address the challenges faced by Canadian veterans, which will be
detailed by Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino during a visit to the
Officers' Mess at Garrison Toronto.

Support for veterans will also be the topic of a mid-afternoon press
conference by New Democrat veterans critic Peter Stoffer, who will focus his
attention on "the difficulties faced by spouses of veterans with post-traumatic
stress disorder."

Elsewhere on the committee front, Ethics members are slated to begin discussion on which witnesses to call forth to
testify on Conservative backbench MP Mark Adler's bid to force parliamentary
officers and staff -- as well as anyone applying for positions within those
officers -- to disclose any partisan activities -- including, but not limited
to running for office or serving on the executive of a local riding association
-- in which they may have engaged during the previous decade.

In a release issued on Monday, the New Democrats announced that they intend to make the case for calling what
they describe as "the real beneficiaries" of the proposed bill: former
Conservative minister Peter Penashue, Conservative Senator Irving Gerstein and
Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro, among others.

Government Operationsgets a briefing from Treasury Board officials on current open
data practices

The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, Alberta Federation of Labour and
other groups share their thoughts on the "cross-country benefits of
developing the oil and gas sector" at Natural
Resources

Human Resourceslooks into "opportunities for aboriginal persons in the
workforce"

The Subcommittee on International Human Rightsinvestigates allegations of "forced harvesting and trafficking
of human organs"

Finance hears from BlackBerry, the Canadian Payments
Association and Interac as it continues its examination of emerging digital payment systems.

Out and about on the ministerial circuit:

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver heads to Houston for the Annual IHS
Cambridge Energy Research Associates' annual conference, where he will, once
again, "highlight Canada as a responsible supplier of energy to the world"
during a breakfast speech, and take questions from reporters back home via
teleconference.

Also calling in to provide tele-comment on her endeavours: Minister of State
for Consular and Foreign Affairs Lynne Yelich, who is currently in Geneva.

Finally, Minister of State for Social Development Candice Bergen makes an
appearance in Victoria, where she'll be front and centre at a photo op to mark a
"five year investment in affordable housing."

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About the Author

Kady O'Malley has been covering the Hill for more than a decade (yes, really) for a variety of publications. An Ottawa girl (not quite born, but raised), she has a passion for politics that borders on the unhealthy, and has liveblogged her way through hundreds of committee meetings, press conferences, judicial inquiries, budget launches, cabinet shuffles, and even the odd constitutional crisis. Oh, and yes, her Boston Terrier really is named "BlackBerry."
For up-to-the-minute bulletins, follow Kady on twitter!